How to set up public Wi-Fi for your Business

The internet is one of the biggest markets in India.According to an estimate in 2018, there will be 3.60 billion Internet user in the world out of which 346.3 millions users will be from India itself. India is one of the fastest growing market for The internet. According to a research your profit can be up by 20% seen in the restaurant if you provide free Wi-Fi. Please see below chart for projected Internet users around the world.

The point I would like to make is, If you own a business irrespective of it is small, medium or large; you have to have the internet in your premises for your customer.For example, if you own a small cafe, restaurant, hotel or any other business Internet can give an edge over others. Lets see first what are the benefits of providing user Wi-Fi internet at your business:

Competitive advantage – I have not seen The internet is provided at all business outlet in India. If you have it, it will provide you an advantage over others. People want to be online all the time, no matter if they are on the airport or a restaurant. They want to check in instantly , share photos and want to be in touch with others.With 3G and 2G is costly in India, a free Wi-Fi hotspot will definitely attract more customer to your business. Many people do not want to read books for time pass but prefer to be online. This is very well applicable at restaurant, cafe, vehicle service station or a big grocery store.

Branding – A Wi-Fi hotspot gives you the opportunity to brand your business. People engage more with you through social media and you can connect in a better way with your customer. Any bad or no promotion on social media can affect your business. According to an estimate, approximately 90% of business will come from The internet by 2020.A business normally gets more customer by their good review in social media. You cannot ignore it as a business.

More referral – A Wi-Fi service means better interaction with customer on social media and then refer their friends and family and let you get more customer for your business.People can write a review about your business online and you will have a good presence on The internet.

More customers – A free Wi-Fi customer make sure you have repeated customers.

You can increase rates – Even if you increase your food or hotels rates by 10 percentage, the customer won’t bother as they are getting free Internet.

The most common question every business person think before he/she decides to offer Wi-Fi for their customers:

What Type of the Equipment I need to purchase?

You need to buy a router to connect to the modem provided by your internet service provider. The type of router depends on how big is your premise and how many people are going to use the internet concurrently. Depending on the size of your business you also need to buy router extender to boost your Wi-Fi signal. You also have to make sure your router should take load once your customer base increases.

How much Bandwidth I require?

This again depends on how much concurrent user you are expecting to log in at once.As an average if 10 users logged on concurrently on your Wi-Fi, you need at least 5 Mbps of Internet. First estimates how many customer you can expect and then decide the best option from your Internet service provider.

How to provide access to Customer?

You need to make sure you provide security to a customer who login. As per Govt of India norm, a user must be validated with his/her phone number to login. You also have to use better encryption technique for data.

Once you decide to go ahead and provide Wi-Fi hotspot for your customers, the next step is how to do it? I am going to suggest few easy way to set it up for business. My post is more inclined to smaller business like a restaurant , cafe etc. and not for a bigger institution like hotels or university.

Flickr:Erin Pettigrew

Facebook Wi-Fi – Facebook Wi-Fi lets your customer check in on your Facebook page to gain free Wi-Fi access. People can also have a look to Fan page every time to check latest offer and announcement. Facebook works with the certain type of router only to provide you this feature. It also provides you an admin page to manage all your settings. Below are some benefits using this method:

Easy to setup, not much technical knowledge required

Control how much free Wi-Fi customer can access in a day

Brand your business using Facebook fan page

Option of providing access without Facebook check in

Option of login with or without password

Some of the drawback using Facebook Wi-Fi:

At present Facebook support only 5-6 router, you have to buy them only

Little costly

Go to this link for more info.

Please check this video to understand how to setup Wi-Fi hotspot using Facebook:

The second method:

The second way is to go directly to a vendor who provides software to manage Wi-Fi and update the firmware of a Router to provide customized service for you.They charged little extra but their solution provides more features and they set up everything for you. Here is few service provider in India; Whizzwifi, Imfreewifi. I like their service as it is more customized and can be adjusted as per your requirement. Lets see some of their advantages:

Better security – For example they provide the method to login via SMS. As per Indian Govt mandate, for every free Wi-Fi login you need to verify user by mobile number.

Customized ad/banner – You can put Advertisement to force the user to view a video ad before login to free Wi-Fi.

Limit bandwidth and time for customers

Conclusion:

I tried to include as many details as I can. This information may not be in full, but I will continue to add more details. This post surely aware you about adding Wi-Fi to your business if you want to sustain the competitive market.Please do write to me If you want to get more details or looking to implement Wi-Fi for your business.